In a typical service provider network there are a large number of Session Border Controllers (SBCs) protecting its network elements across a large geographically dispersed service area. When two endpoints are on different or disparate networks, a registering SBC remains on the signaling path and the media path of the call. This creates “hairpinning” of calls as the media path is required to traverse through a single network two or more times. For example, a “hairpin” results when a media path traverses a network once to get to the registering SBC and then traverses the same network a second time to get to the endpoint. “Hairpinning” creates inefficient use of network resources such as bandwidth, processing power and memory of network elements.